Be Careful When Shopping Online
by loopdedoop
Summary: "Always look forward. Know your part, put your all into it, and trust your band members to keep up with you. As long as you're still standing on the stage performing, we all are." In which the Joui 4 put aside their differences (sort of) and form a (girl) band. Follow Edo's hottest new band as they revolutionize (destroy) Edo's music scene! [Joui4, Takagin; Full title inside.]
1. When a friend gives you coupons

full title:** be careful when shopping online because what you see in pictures is probably not what you're actually going to get**

Joui4 friendship and maybe a bit more; hints of (and eventual) Takasugi/Gintoki, and possibly other minor crack pairings on a whim. Not as AU as it seems.

You may be confused. I really don't know where I'm going with this, so just, uh.. enjoy? Longer author's note at the end.

* * *

_part one_. **a true friend is someone who gives you homemade coupons for your birthday**

.-.-.

Always look forward. Know your part, put your all into it, and trust your band members to keep up with you. As long as you're still standing on the stage performing, we all are.

Smile; the cameras are on you and your face is being broadcasted live in definition so high that your every sweating pore can be seen (good thing Tatsuko's imported magical pore fillers from outer space came in time). Your fans are watching (Shinsuko's eye is going berserk from twitching at every loud-ass fanboy's screams), it's an outdoor stage on a cloudless autumn day with a gentle breeze (that is gracefully caressing Zurako's silky black hair and inducing the aforementioned fanboys' screams), and there's going to be a lot of money rolling in from the ticket sales and the concert goods that Paako will be able to splurge on Two-Ps (the fabled treasures of parfaits and pachinko). The world is your stage. Just do it!

Four pairs of interwoven hands reach for the sky. _Good evening, everyone! We are Houkago Happy Hour!_

Their performance ends with deafening applause.

.

.

.

Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's backtrack a bit, shall we?

Rewind to a Takasugi Shinsuke bound and gagged by his two former comrades' feet and obviously beyond furious at such degrading treatment. His one eye is dilated in the most nightmarish way, pupil piercing enough to be shooting lasers at a certain silver-coloured perm-head.

Said perm-head tsks and bends down to grin sadistically at him. "Oi, oi, _Takasugi-sama_. Don't look at me like that. If I have to do this stupid arc with Zura, you're coming along. We can be Crapxile together."

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura. And it's not stupid arc, it's a way to recruit the youth of Edo to join our noble cause using the powerful universal language of music..."

Ruby eyes widen as their owner detects the dream-like tone Katsura's voice had trailed off in. "Shit, Zura's about to start one of his flashbacks again...! Come back, ZURA, NOOOOOOOOO-"

.

.

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"Gintoki."

The familiar OST marking Zura's appearance is never a good sign. Gintoki doesn't raise his eyes from his weekly Shonen Jump magazine as he sighs, "What is it, Zura?"

Katsura laughs slowly, deliberately, and Gintoki can't help but feel a sense of foreboding tickling at his spine. It's the kind of laugh that precedes one of Zura's wild fantasies, the telltale sound of the mass in his head that can't even be classified as a brain anymore whipping out another grandiose scheme of messing with the Shinsengumi toilet paper stash or chilling watermelons in public pools. "Gintoki, have you seen the script for the arc that will begin today? I have, and we will become a sensational duo that can rival the likes of Otsu-dono and sell lots of merchandise to fanboys to perform dirty acts with. Let us be on our way to the recording studio, Gintoki!"

Silence, and then the crinkle accompanying the turning of a page of Jump. "Not interested," Gintoki drawls, and shifts to a more comfortable position on the couch.

Another beat of silence. "Oh," Katsura says meekly. He turns away, letting his bangs hide his expression from view, and continues in a timid voice, "S-Sorry. I got carried away in my excitement of not being on standby again for another arc. Forget I said anything. I'll take my leave now."

He begins to make his way towards the door leading out of the apartment of the Yorozuya Gin-chan while counting three Elizabeths in his head. The newest issue of Jump crinkles for another three Elizabeths, and then he is not disappointed by what he hears next.

"Wait."

Katsura pauses, tilting his head to the side. "You do not need to console me, Gintoki. I will go drown in Ikumatsu-dono's oily yakisoba."

"Better not let her hear that, Zura." Gintoki scratches his head while mentally sighing once again. Why was he always caught up in Zura's ploys? He'd been planning to laze around the whole day with his Jump and the newly-stocked strawberry milk in his fridge. His life had already been too hectic lately! Seriously, what was with that gorilla author and Sunrise going from arc to arc without much of a break in between? Gin-san had had to operate on a Jump withdrawal! Give Gin-san a break already! But little tendrils of guilt from not calling his childhood friend up the last time he'd stormed the Shogun's castle were coiling up again, and Gintoki was pretty much powerless against said friend when he was acting like this. "Alright, alright, I'll come."

Whirling around to face him, the expectant smile stretched on Katsura's normally-composed face is blinding. Regretfully, this is not an animated piece, but if it were, there would literally be sparkles and stuff. "I knew it, Gintoki! Your weakness is moe! Ah, but do not worry, Gintoki, I will seal my lips and take your secret fetishes to my grave-" His rambling is cut off when Gintoki knocks him across the room, yelling, "I'll give you a grave right here!"

Huffing, Gintoki brushes his hands of imaginary dirt and stands upright. "Not so fast. I do have one condition," he says, and there is a malevolent twinkle in his eye.

.

.

.

"And this brings us here, Takasugi. Gintoki's one condition was you." Katsura uncrosses his arms and smiles beatifically at the tied-up governor of the Kiheitai, who's still glaring at the two of them with the strength of a thousand beam cannons.

"Hey, don't go starting flashbacks just because you're too lazy to explain things to him!" As the straight man whenever Zura's around, Gintoki feels like that was something he should yell. Role completed for the moment, he leans down to untie the gag in his former-rival-slash-comrade-turned-nemesis figure's mouth. "So, what do you say? I heard you in those showers back then, by the way. For such a midget, you have a decent voice."

Takasugi's eye flashes at the word "midget"; he was going to _destroy_ the naturally curly-haired idiot once he got out of these surprisingly resilient ropes. Short - _short_, his mind sputters. They were all just tall freaks, and he was going to destroy them all- but the miniscule corner of his mind that was still rational ("Miniscule"? Here the author of this fanfic is added to his _rather tall _list of Things To Destroy) recognizes a grudging compliment from the perm-head's mouth, and he calms down enough to remember gentle hands. Sensei... Sensei used to tell him he had a beautiful singing voice. One day when the stupid permhead freak had made fun of his singing and sensei had berated him for it, much to the young Takasugi's satisfaction. Then he also got a scolding for calling the freak a freak, but when Sensei turned around the freak had stuck his tongue out at him, which led to Takasugi jumping on him and calling him a freak again.

They both got in quite a bit of trouble that day. Such memories are almost enough to warm the harshness of his mouth. But those memories are distant now, as if they had never been his in the first place- merely those of an observer of a fading motion picture.

In his mind, he could see Sensei's patient, steady hand teaching him to write. Since the start, Takasugi had been drawn by the bold strokes on paper that could form words, evoke imagery, lull the senses. Where Zura's calligraphy style was refined and Gintoki's an illegible mess, Takasugi's pen flowed to his own rhythm, harsh lines and soft curves dictated by the haphazard calling of his passion. He'd spend the lessons with his cheek resting in his palm and words dancing in his head. On occasions he'd recited a few lines to sensei. "You have a gift for poetry, Shinsuke-kun," Shoyo-sensei's pleased smile never fails to make him puff out his chest proudly, and he remembers those warm hands ruffling his hair...

But it had never been simply poetry to him. The lines in his head would sync with melodies of his weaving, drawing inspiration from the folk songs sensei would have everyone sing in class. If sensei hadn't - if things had turned out differently, in another universe, there may have been a ballad singer named Takasugi Shinsuke. Even now, the beast inside flares up in dreams of a world consumed by brilliant hellfire raging to the deadly beat of post-apocalyptic heavy metal. It was one of the reasons why he had been drawn to Bansai; a childish envy of the man who could hear the song of the end of the world.

(During this whole nostalgic inner trip down the memory lane, Takasugi's eyes had glazed over to make the oddest expression on his face.)

"Oi, Zura, I think we've broken him."

"This is solely your fault, Gintoki. Anyone who comes in contact with you is reduced to such a sorry state."

"Ah, right. You're the prime example of it, Zura."

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura."

There is a prodding at Takasugi's left cheek. The familiar(ly annoying) calluses on the finger can only point to one man. He snaps his eye up to fixate his gaze on the infuriating mop of silver hair. It'd been a while since he'd taken a break from plans of world destruction, he supposes. His Kiheitai could take care of themselves for a while. He'd trained them well, after all. His pawns were already slowly moving into place in the background, and for the moment he didn't really have anything to do. And he could also use a reprieve from Kijima's prying eyes following him around everywhere...

It is Zura's voice that decides for him. Zura, who's looking expectantly at him and making energetic gestures of the idealistic possibilities and dreams his head had always been stuffed with. Zura, whose eyes are just as bright (about the cause, about the future) when he recruits members to form a pop band as he once recruited soldiers for the war effort. "Be our lead singer, Shinsuke!"

Ahh, what the heck.

"..Fine."

.

.

.

The trio (after Gintoki untied Takasugi's bonds and the two glared sparks at each other for a while) ended up at the photography studio where they would be taking pictures for their album cover and individual photo cards. To lovingly wrangle as much money out of their future fans as possible, one had to be smart and employ certain gimmicks, like including one random photo card in each packaged CD. Given that there were three members, a fan who was Gintoki-biased ("because everyone loves Gin-san!") could potentially only get his photo card after buying three copies of the album.

"See, kids, the music industry is a cutthroat business." Gintoki, who'd somehow conjured a pair of glasses out of thin air, is lecturing to what, for anyone else happening to look at him, is a brick wall with lots of G**dam graffiti on it.

Takasugi forcibly drags him into the building by the collar. Zura's already inside negotiating with the head photographer, hands gesturing heatedly at where he wanted the lights, camera, and action to go. Knowing Zura, the photoshoot was going to be a mess if they let him take the reins, so Takasugi sides up to them and smiles smoothly at the photographer. She's a fairly tough woman-her flinch at his smile is quickly, albeit shoddily, concealed.

"You can ignore what he says. Just make those pictures good." Just the slightest lilt in his voice is enough to imply to anyone with half a brain that the studio could find itself blown up the next day if he wasn't satisfied.

The photographer nods hastily, and scurries off to make preparations.

Katsura pouts for a moment. Then he regains his spirit and trails after her. "Ah, photographer-dono, I already sent someone for our outfits. He should be here any moment now..."

Takasugi feels the familiar twitch of his muscles, his honed senses detecting a dark aura fast approaching. Judging by the way Gintoki freezes (in the middle of emptying the complimentary bowl of candy on the receptionist's desk), he's noticed it too. There's a whirring sound coming from above and then no time to brace themselves at all before the ceiling splintered and the room was shrouded in smoke.

Takasugi is rather unfazed by the wreckage. As such, he's the first person to catch sight of a head of brown curls emerging from the dust. "I hope I'm not late, ahaha-aHAHAHAHA. I hope this is the right place too, ahaha-HAHAHAHAHA."

Whatever he was going to say next was cut off by a jump kick to the head courtesy of our favourite (only) silver-haired protagonist who evidently liked kicking his old buddies around when they chose to pop up out of nowhere. With love, of course. As much love as one could pack into a flying kick that sent Sakamoto to the opposite wall. Sakamoto regains his rightful orientation moments later, blood spurting profusely from a sliver of wood sticking through the top of his head while he clutches at his thigh. "Ahahah-AHAHAHHA Kintoki, I see your thigh kick is as strong as ever."

Katsura barrels through the smoke to charge at the moron laughing heartily in a fountain of blood, and the other two Joui in the scene have the sense to plug their ears. "TATSUMA." Katsura shrieks. "TATSUMA, WHAT DID YOU JUST DO."

"Oh, I have your clothes in the cockpit!" Sakamoto grins and wobbles over to the heap of warped metal and debris in the center of the room in an attempt to ward off Katsura's rage. "Let's see..."

He looks up at his former comrades with a sheepish smile on his face. "Uh, the cockpit seems to have become one with the propeller and the rudder. Ahahahaha, how could that have happened?"

Nothing could have saved him from Katsura descending upon him like a vulture making a bloody meal out of... well, a very loud person.

.

.

.

By some miraculous turn of events, the four of them manage to dig out a crate from the catastrophe that is still sitting front-and-center in some poor photographer's studio. (Speaking of the photographer, she's currently having a mental breakdown in the makeshift kitchen, ie. sharpening knives, so let's give her a break for now.) Or, it was more like the four of them managed to get along for long enough to combine their efforts and dig out that crate.

"Your clothes," Sakamoto gestures to the rather dented crate and does a flourishing bow. "It was a pleasure to do business with you."

"I'm going to leave a scathing review and negative feedback," Katsura sniffs.

Sakamoto shrugs good-naturedly. "Good businessmen are prepared for anything that could possibly go wrong. I've blacklisted Fruit_Punch_Samurai," he says, and pushes the crate toward Katsura, who nudges it to Gintoki expectantly.

With a sigh, Gintoki reaches forward and tugs on the top flap of the cardboard. It doesn't budge, so he shifts to get a better grip and yanks at it again. Takasugi resists the urge to roll his eye and slips out his sword instead. The blade is sheathed again in the next second, moving too fast for the frame rate to catch (the hypothetical frame rate of course, as this is merely fanfiction). The box collapses into pieces while the contents within are revealed, unharmed.

"Show off," Gintoki mutters. Takasugi almost smirks.

"Well, let's see what our first album concept is going to be, hm?" Gintoki picks up the first item on the top of the pile. It happens to be an extremely frilly skirt. The temperature kind of drops in the room, a deadly chill emanating from the three assuredly masculine guys who are going to have to wear this shit. They rummage through the various dresses and cropped flowery tops and garter tights that would make a lolicon proud, expressions darkening with each frimpy thing they toss aside.

Finally, they turn to the man solely responsible for delivering their stage outfits. Katsura's hair is slightly frizzled. "I believe I ordered rocker outfits," he says slowly. It is the calm before the storm.

Sakamoto's boisterous laugh only results in him digging a larger hole for himself. "Lots of girl bands wear these nowadays, Zura! I quite enjoyed K-**! myself. I had to watch it secretly, though, or Mutsu would really kill me."

"I believe I ordered _male rocker outfits_," Katsura emphasizes. There's a reason his specialty is in bomb attacks. His foot goes_ tap tap tap_ against the tarnished floor and there was no telling when his internal timer would reach zero. Probably when the internal matter in his skull called a brain started to function.

"Why would you even order from this guy?" yells Gintoki, wagging a (snot-coated) finger in Sakamoto's direction. Permhead or not, for once, Takasugi is inclined to agree with him.

"I had a gift certificate," is Katsura's defence. He turns to Gintoki. "_You_ gave me that gift certificate. For my birthday."

"Which was totally forged, by the way," Sakamoto interjects with a laugh.

Gintoki flicks a fresh booger away. "What are you talking about, the customer is always right."

Meanwhile, Takasugi has already abandoned all hope for this unit thing to work. Sure, space was boring most of the time and he didn't quite have enough screentime in the last Gintama movie, but having more appearances wasn't worth this. How could he have already forgotten how dysfunctional a group they were? Even if.. and here Takasugi pauses, memories flashing by in some crappily-put-together slideshow that he didn't have the power to stop. Even if they had a certain chemistry back in the day and could buldoze enemy lines in battle, away from the battlefield it was all hopeless. And UNO parties.

He couldn't say he'd enjoyed it immensely, but he couldn't say that he had altogether hated it, either.

(It was all he saw every time he held the moon's gaze. During the day he weaves blazing trails of destruction. During the night, he remembers. His pipe smells of fields and flames long smothered.)

A frustratingly annoying voice penetrates his thoughts and is coming from a source far too close for comfort. "Oi, stop having these pensive looks on your face, you're going completely out of character here." Takasugi doesn't have to turn his head to know that Gintoki's annoying perm is right there, on the side he could no longer see from. "The author is going to have a hard time and then she'll have to stick warnings everywhere about how moody and OOC you are."

Takasugi grits his teeth as he shoves the other man away. Together, the two of them turn to Katsura and Sakamoto. Katsura's rampage is breaking anything in the studio that had been left untouched by the crash of the spaceship, his wig wild and spitting venom (it's not a wig, it's Katdusa) as he demands a full refund to be deposited to the savings account he uses to be buy nmaibo with. Never mind the fact that he'd never actually paid anything to begin with.

"Ten cases of nmaibo for me," he says to the bloody pulp beneath him that was once Sakamoto, "and another five cases for Elizabeth, who needs to go on a diet for a while - _ow_ -"

Out of seemingly thin air, a blank placard materializes and flies across the room to whack Katsura on the head. It is a critical hit. The sound of footsteps off the side indicates that the photographer has somewhat recovered from her breakdown, and is slowly stepping towards the door. No doubt she would call the police, and the Shinsengumi would arrive and grind this whole plan to a halt.

It was left to Gintoki to save the day, as always. He didn't know why he bothered, but he had to admit that it was almost kind of nice – to see those stupid faces again. Talking to them when the pressure of the war wasn't a constant, taut weight on his shoulders. Talking to _Takasugi_ when he wasn't a bastard trying to burn the world to ashes, but just a bastard, pure and simple.

His wooden sword is joined by a distinctive metal one in the air; both swords lodge into the door in a perfect tandem not seen for ten years. The photographer jumps back with a scream, mouth agape as she looks back at two men and a rocky relationship rekindled.

"You. Got anything we could wear? A studio like this should have spare suits for rental."

"Ooh, good thinking, Takasugi-_kun_. That ED with us in suits was very well received by the fan-girls."

His light tone of agreement stirs the beast inside Takasugi. It is angered at the thought of being contained again; Takasugi drives it away for the first time in years, and half snarls, "I may be working with you right now, but your voice still grates me."

"Right back at you," says Gintoki as the two of them turn their attention to the poor woman who will probably never touch photography again.

Trembling, she points to the sign hanging up above the reception desk. _First Love Wedding & Bridal Photography_, it reads. "We only have wedding dresses for rental." Her eyes dart around to avoid direct eye contact with the formidable men in front of her, and she doesn't seem to far from cracking. "Look, I wanted to ask you in the beginning, but... are you sure you're in the right kind of studio for whatever you're doing?"

Two pairs of expressions darken identically. Then, ever-so-slowly, they turn around. The man in question, the one who'd _led_ them here like he'd known what he was doing but of course they should have realized he _didn't_... the one who is already holding up the white placard he'd picked back up as a sign of surrender. "You can always trust the places married women go to," he explains.

Forget Bakamoto. First, there was _Bakatsura_ to take care of. It was his own misfortune that he'd selected not one, but two super sadists, to be his band mates. Gintoki and Takasugi were formidable sadists in their own right, but that was alright when they were generally sadistic to each other. If they were ever to have, Sorachi forbid, a sadists coalition...

The Young Noble of Fury certainly had a very undignified scream.

.

.

.

In the end, it was between the frilly bunny-eared maid outfits or the wedding dresses.

The wedding dresses won. Their masculine prides disintegrated.

It was still not the easiest task to get three of them into the dramatic Western-styled sweeping dresses of white.

"No one's going to see a difference, Gintoki," Katsura twirls, having somehow already changed into a classically timeless A-line that hugged his slender form modestly, a mesh veil donned on and make-up expertly applied. He – _she?_ – the narrator is a bit confused, but will carry on with the usual pronouns for now – manages to spin perfectly despite the fact that his feet were in a pair of elegant high heels, and continues, "You're already always in white. You need to step up as the main character by wearing something no Jump hero has ever had. Look, here's an asymmetrical one with only one shoulder strap so you'll still have the distinguishable silhouette."

"Zura," Gintoki grounds out. His nose kind of hurts from over-mining it earlier, but nothing hurts more than his headache caused by the overdose of stupidity in the room. "There's a men's clothing store a block down the street."

Katsura is already flouncing across the room to where Takasugi is standing mutely by some gowned mannequins. "Nonsense, Gintoki! A samurai never goes back on his words!" He calls over his shoulder. "Ah, Shinsuke, do you want to try this on? Photographer-dono, if you will…"

Gintoki tunes them out to stare at the asymmetric satin dress that had been pointed out to him, and shakes his head in horror. _Noooope. Zura's gone crazy. He's already crazy, goddammit! Gin-san is never putting that on!_

"Ahahahahaha," Sakamoto tries to cut in Gintoki's adamant rambling, "this looks very fun and all, but why do I have to wear a dress too? Guys, I have a business meeting in a few hours, ahahaha!"

He wisely shuts up when he's responded with a glare. "Shut up, this is your entire fault, Sakamoto. Don't think you're getting out of this, aah? You can drum or something. Oi, Zura, get him a dress too – " Gintoki casually turns his gaze to where Katsura had been and feels his jaw drop to the floor. Like, whole jaw and all. Collapsed.

Because poised beside Katsura Kotarou, leader of the moderate Anti-Foreigner Faction… is the leader of the most radical one, the most wanted criminal in all of Edo, the man whose bounty on his _stupid soft _purple-haired head was high enough to satisfy Gintoki's Jump and strawberry milk cravings for probably the rest of his life and then half of his afterlife too, if they sold it in hell. Takasugi Shinsuke, the terrifying governor of the Kiheitai with his maniacally green eye and unshackled beast.

..Is in a cream-coloured, flowing, v-necked sheath dress.

Sakamoto is laughing in the background, but Gintoki can't concentrate on anything with the sudden loud hammering in his chest and the flush of heat in his cheeks. In all honesty, it should have been disgusting to look at the tanned, calloused man of stiff edges wear what was a gentle, velvety dress that revealed much of his legs. Although Takasugi had never been particularly hairy, it should have been disturbing nonetheless, and Gintoki should have been having a good time ridiculing the other man's getup. But the low v-neck is dipping sultrily into the planes of the other man's lower chest, and Gintoki's mouth goes dry at the way the dress hitches at the hard angles of his hips.

"It's not Zura, it's Zurako," Katsura responds flippantly to Gintoki's calling of his nickname some paragraphs ago. Gintoki can't recall anything but the vibrancy of a lone eye that has never ceased to focus on him. Katsura shakes his head at the jaw still sadly abandoned on the floor and prods at a grooming Takasugi. "I thought you said you've never cross-dressed before!"

"I haven't."

"You lie! You couldn't possibly be this close to level of glamour of I, who spent precious screen time in drag to train for this – especially not while _smoking _ in a wedding dress," Katsura says, scandalized, when Takasugi somehow produces a pipe from the padded area of his stuffed boobs and lights it with ease and magic.

Gintoki, by now, has eased his jaw back into its proper alignment with the rest of his "dashingly good looks", he says, trying and failing to cut into the narration in order to salvage some of his lost standing in this story.

Unfortunately, he'd forgotten that his eyes had still not left a certain fake bride. "Jealous, Gintoki?" A faint smirk is visible on Takasugi's face. Flattering or not, Gintoki still really wants to rip it off.

"Not you, bastard! Me! _Me!_ And anyway, Zura makes a much better girl than you do," he childishly jabs. Katsura is torn between preening and delivering his catchphrase, and ends up dividing his time evenly between the two before engaging in another one-sided conversation with the photographer.

Gintoki's arms cross and he feigns nonchalance as he puts out, "anyway, I'll have you know that Gin-san makes a very convincing girl, too. Paako is very popular among the patrons, right, Zura? The natural perm is the new milkshake in the yard, I tell you!" He _hmmphs _and nods, puffs himself up with self-satisfaction and shoots Takasugi another glance.

Takasugi, that insufferable bastard, raises his lone visible eyebrow. And that _does_ things. Stirs something in somewhere that shouldn't be stirred, because it was _Takasugi_ and that was just _sick, he liked boobs and women, think of Ketsuno Ana_ -

He quickly yanks his dress off the hanger and covers the alarmingly problematic area with it. "I'll change into it now," he says, his voice unnaturally high as he backs away a few steps before turning and running the rest of the way to the washroom.

From his vantage point, one man who always sees more than he ever lets on doesn't miss the entire exchange and the shifts in body language of his fellow comrade in battling naturally wavy hair. "This is mine, right?" Sakamoto cheerily lifts an ivory ball gown off of a tall stand that anyone else significantly shorter would struggle with, and makes his way over to the washroom without another word. There was a benefit in having his head up in the clouds all the time; dreams drove away boundaries, defied judgment, and that inherently made him an open person to confide in.

So he nudges the washroom door open, and initiates the much overdue heart-to-heart talk with a good friend.

.

.

.

The two of them re-emerge from the washroom laughing at a joke Sakamoto made (at Takasugi's expense, not that it was something he needed to know). Gintoki flashes his middle finger at, admittedly, his personal rival; Takasugi doesn't hesitate in sending one back. It's a terse few moments later before they both break into grins, and the atmosphere visibly lightens.

Katsura waves them over. "It is time for the group hug! That picture of us back in the day has been reused more times than Jackie's nose! The viewers have spoken out demanding something new! We want something sensational and inspiring – like a before-and-after shot of us, ten years later and about to be married."

"How's that even remotely inspiring?! We're regressing, oi, don't ruin Gin-san's cool scenes! They're limited as it is!"

But Gintoki goes over to his left side anyway, hand reaching out to whack Katsura's head before slipping it across his back. With a good-natured grin, Sakamoto joins in beside Gintoki and his arm comfortably crosses with Katsura's over Gintoki's shoulders.

There is space for one left; the unspoken is palpable in the room. Takasugi's eye is flickering, specks of green wavering in intensity to the desire in his soul. Gintoki watches with bated breath as Takasugi makes a jarring movement, seemingly directed inward as if his chest was in pain, but it's reflex-like in its speed and gone within the next blink of an eye.

Then the fourth and final Joui warrior moves to take his place among the idiots that he'd called friends, once upon a time. He doesn't need to remind himself that it's too late, now; the fact is etched in all of their stances even as Sakamoto reaches out for a hold on him. The image of the world in flames is the thin string that holds him together, mind, body and soul. It's the one reason he still goes on even when he's out of reasons, the will of a man to shroud in carnage a world that has only wronged him. For all that Gintoki has preached about the will to protect, he has failed to acknowledge that the will to destroy is its equal in every measure. Like night and day, they were two people with two desires that could never coexist, the only thing tying them together being inverted promises to the same revered mentor.

His own promise is what held him from going beyond at the brink of sanity even with a foot already across the line, the driving power of an irrational force that won't stop and won't let him stop, either, until everything once vivid and alive _like Sensei_ has crumbled to ashes. This power will consume him, too – it's already consuming him – but he has long known that this was a one-way road. Return is not an option. Neither is failure.

So, why, then, is he humouring old connections that have already frayed, entertaining the idea of another path even though it could only ever be a little blip on the road he'd chosen long ago?

The hidden strength of Sakamoto's arm wrapping around his back is more familiar than he'd expected. He doesn't have to glance to his right to see the wary expressions they all carry. The snug of their bodies is still the perfect fit, like they were meant to be.

What had changed were their hearts.

And even Katsura, self-proclaimed expert in the unpredictability of love and the unrivalled master in bonking the heroines of dating sims off cliffs, doesn't know a single damn fix.

(So he smiles. It doesn't quite reach his eyes, but he hopes for even a fraction of it to reach the other three.)

.

Lights flash in a spastic rhythm as the four interchange positions to take as many photos as they can amidst assorted backdrops and stupid props. Like the fairytale wand they were all made to hold for a 'fairy bride' look - those pictures weren't going to see the light of day, ever -

Even when Takasugi's eye is shut, he can still see three annoyingly persistent lights in his way. They want to stop him.

But they'll never realize what it's like to have a beast inside you, pushing, biding its time until you give it an opening to rein its head; meanwhile, Takasugi is already numb to the recoil.

No, that's not quite right. Someone else is just as painfully aware as he is of its devastation. And it's the one thing he doesn't get, no matter how long he mulls over it in his head – how Gintoki can be so nonchalant about it all, locking the beast and throwing away the key as if it didn't cost him a thing.

But today he could pretend, too. With his eye shutting off the world and only the pressing of warmth in his side in the briefest moment of peace, this could have been a feeling of contentment.

.

.

.

The pictures come out much better than expected.

Studio-destroying aside (though reparations are already underway courtesy of Sakamoto's genius pair of carpenters), they were, after all, four young men with "ridiculously good looks and one with an irresistible natural perm" - courtesy of Gintoki's self-insert – and bodies kept physically fit with acts of strenuous exercise ranging from heroism to terrorism to laughter, space-battling, rent-evading, police-eluding, business-conducting, nmaibo-throwing, Jump-reading, Yakult-drinking, and the like. To put it mildly, they were every female photographer's dream to work with as models, other minor nuances notwithstanding.

Thus, the photographer's rate of recovery is astonishingly fast. It is hard to gush over anything when you'd just witnessed some pretty horrifying things, but she manages anyway.

"This is perfect, and so is this shot, and this, so you'll be buying the deluxe package that includes all of the pictures in the normal package plus a bunch of useless stickers for ten times the price, right?" She gushes, wholeheartedly forgiving all of the incidents of the day. Idiots brought bad luck, but they also brought the money to make up for it.

"Ahahahaha why am I paying for everything? Mutsu's going to kill me when she gets the bill, hahahaha… Shinsuke! Your Kiheitai is well-off too, please chip in please please please please -"

In the daily operations of the Kiheitai, all of the paperwork required is taken care of by Bansai. Takasugi's access to the treasury is thus not as direct. So, instead, he tells Sakamoto to suck it up and ignores the juvenile voicing of "that's what she said" from Gintoki.

There's no need to retort when he knows Zura's already on his way.

"Gintoki!" The long-haired male admonishes. The effect is heightened by his female garments. "A samurai does not think such uncouth thoughts. Keep your perversions about Shinsuke to yourself so this fanfic doesn't become M-rated and hidden in the archive."

No, he'd definitely lost his mind if he'd actually thought Zura could handle this properly.

A shoe lift flies at Katsura's head but he dodges well this time. Takasugi looks up to see Gintoki cackling and that confirms his suspicions – that's one of _his_ shoe lifts which he keeps hidden in the folds of his shawl (for emergencies only, note that he has never used them at all), and it was an oversight he shouldn't have made. But it allowed for things like throwing the Jump that had been lying on the table at a Katsura that surely could not defend both ends…

It was soon a full-blown war, three men taking apart a studio as fast as the carpenter brothers could repair it.

.

Sakamoto can't stop himself from grinning even as he pulls out his wallet and gets everything inside it thoroughly swindled away.

His eye for assessing the value in things has always been peculiar, anyway. Money itself had no worth until you gave it one. And while the era of the Joui War may not have been Sakamoto's brightest days, there were things in there that he'd seen the true value of right away and, with a bit of support, they'd shaped up to be worth more than the stars in the farthest galaxies.

Mutsu was still going to kill him, though. He had just the slightest inkling that she wouldn't be too impressed with the transaction or his corny justification behind it.

.

-.-.-

_/end part one._

* * *

_/ begin blurb_:

So I've always liked the Joui members, but what intrigues me the most are their interactions and dynamics even though we rarely get glimpses of it, and the whole Gintama verse lends itself so well to fanworks because you can technically do anything with it, so this was born. Somehow. And somehow I managed to stick through with it to write 6.5k of this. It has been a long and arduous journey because I write at a snail's pace and my planning basically consists of OH IT WOULD BE FUN IF THEY DID THIS, but it has been fun.

This will be most likely eventual Takasugi/Gintoki somewhat romantically, ie. as romantic as they can get, although really nothing is planned. It'd started out as genfic but then _my ship started sailing_ in the manga and I couldn't resist. However, their friendship is_ not_ going to take a backseat to the romance.

I will be busy again soon and have no idea when I will finish the next part, but I will see this thing done. But... have an excerpt!

.

.

**Coming up next…**

"Do we even know how to write a proper song?"

_In which the author realizes that all of this later, the Joui4 still haven't yet made their debut. Or written a song. We're kind of behind schedule and probably rewinded a bit too far back, but that's okay. Until next time!  
_

_Also, if you're reading this far, you should leave a review. :D Concrit greatly welcomed.  
_

- 02/26/2014


	2. Don't judge songs by their titles either

Haven't read over this so apologies in advance for any typos/inconsistencies. And without further ado.. here we gooo!

* * *

_part two._ **You can't judge a song by its title, either**

.-.-.

With Katsura around, everything is a whirlwind of activity.

"I'm so glad," he says, dabbing at his eyes with a sleeve. "This is the most screen time I've had in ages. Even if it's not the usual screen time. I was out cold for half of the Joui Reunion Arc, but I am unashamed to reveal that I have only been on standby all the time because Sorachi-sensei finds it too difficult for his mortal hands to capture my lustrous hair."

There is a brief pause for effect. Takasugi looks bored; Sakamoto claps appreciatively; and Gintoki goes back to massaging his nostril.

"And next, we will go eat and catch up on the times. I know a fine establishment for our bonding session, and I have the perfect disguises for all of us!"

He has already fished out four shiny red balls to clamp onto their noses. Gintoki sighs and takes the Ben cosplay. "Anything is fine, as long as I can get out of this dress_ right now_."

After changing back into their regular outfits, our four heroes step out onto the streets with shiny noses that capture the attention of everyone in the vicinity. Evening has fallen, and on a cool midsummer's night like this one, the streets of Edo are lit with a multitude of colours, the crowds restless with a pent-up energy that is soon directed to four weird men dressed up for the holidays of the completely wrong season.

"I don't know them," Gintoki vehemently tells a mother of two sons; she shrieks and pulls her sons away, and Takasugi gives her his patented evil, pupil-dilated glance as he passes. He'd already been declared as a terrorist of the highest level, so what was deriving a little bit of amusement from terrorizing the citizens?

Sakamoto is walking at the back of the group, eyes shining with mirth as he watches his friends wreak havoc on the streets. "Ahahaha, haven't had Earth food in a while!" Then Sakamoto's good humour dissipates as he realizes – "you aren't going make me pay again, right?"

"Do not worry, it will be my treat," Katsura beams. He comes to a stop at a certain establishment and whirls around to face them. "Ah, we're here~"

Gintoki gets the last shove in the light brawl he'd gotten into with Takasugi, and his raised eyes meet the sign lettering _Snack Smile_.

_"Thi_s_ is_ your idea of a fine establishment?!"

.

.

.

"I sent Elizabeth here earlier to save us a table," Katsura says, scanning around the room for his trusty companion. When he doesn't see a white flipper waving him over to a table, he flags down the nearest hostess to ask.

Of course, it's inevitable who the nearest hostess happens to be. Shimura Tae stops in the middle of hauling a drunken guy across the room and presumably tossing his ass out the back door to face them, expression morphing into annoyance when she sees the quartet that had just entered.

"Oh? The incompetent Santa fool is letting his reindeer run around like wild animals again… let me put them back to their places…" She cracks her knuckles and walks towards them in the steps of a true hunter towards her prey, lips stretched in a sadistic smile.

Katsura waves his arms frantically. "Wait, wait, Otae-dono, it's us. Look carefully: a reindeer would never have a natural silver perm."

"Oi, what's that about my hair? A reindeer with a natural silver perm would be the envy of all of the other reindeer in the world! He'd be the new Rudolph!" Gintoki snaps, vein visibly ticking on his forehead. "Besides, reindeer would not wear a wig either, Zura."

With mild surprise, Otae looks them over and, with recognition dawning in her eyes, relaxes her pose. "Oh my, what bright noses you have, Gin-san, Katsura-san, Oryo's-stalker-san. And a new face… How nice of you to bring a friend over for Dom Pérignon."

Gintoki shifts to a nervous smile. "Ah, Otae, we got lost, Zura can't read maps, you see, actually, we were just leaving –" He gulps when the air around Otae starts to sizzle and quickly backs down. "I mean, Dom Pérignon it is!"

"That's four Dom Pérignon, help yourselves to a table and someone will bring it to you eventually." Otae is about to turn her attention back to the drunken guy lying in an undignified heap on the floor when she seems to remember something else. "Oh, Katsura-san, you should train your pet better. It came here all by itself without bringing your wallet along."

"It's not a pet, it's Elizabeth," says Katsura, brow furrowing.

"Your pet is in the dumpster in the back," Otae's unwaveringly bright smile is chilling to the bone, and she continues on as if Katsura hadn't spoken. "We have a no-pets-without-their-owner's-money policy here at Snack Smile, Katsura-san. Please kindly remember that next time."

There's no room for interpretation about what would happen the next time Elizabeth shows upsans cash. "Right, Otae-dono." Katsura salutes and heads to the back to pick up the remains of poor Elizabeth.

"Well, I will be personally dealing with any rowdy customers so don't cause any trouble. Enjoy your drinks and make sure you still have enough left to pay my brother, Gin-san." Otae is half turned away when she's stopped by a hand half-shrouded in silk of purple and gold.

"I'll have a Yakult," the governor of the Kiheitai demands in typical governor fashion.

"Unfortunately, this is not your typical establishment," Otae starts to explain with a strained smile; a withering look in Gintoki's direction that tells him all he needs to know – get the ever-picky Bakasugi seated and stop bothering Otae, pronto. "This is your first time here, so let me tell you about our wonderful menu. We serve Dom Pérignon, Dom Pérignon on Dom Pérignon, and Dom Pérignon in Dom Pérignon with a side of Dom Pérignon. Now, what would you like?"

"Yakul-mmphh." Takasugi finds his mouth mashed against certain warmth, nose breathing in a certain sweaty, musky scent of a hand he could identify blindfolded. He jabs his scabbard into the soft part of Gintoki's stomach and relishes in the _oomph_ he makes as the air is knocked out of him.

"Maa, Takasugi-kun, wanted criminals shouldn't make a scene," Gintoki reasons without relinquishing his hold. He's right, though, for the noise in the cabaret club has settled down and most of the eyes are on their ragtag little group. "Come on, let's sit your highness down."

Meanwhile, Sakamoto has spotted the girl of his dreams standing by the corner. "Oryo-chan!" he screams happily, and rushes forward, only to be knocked back by an Otae in bodyguard mode.

"Mm, your table is _this way_, and for the disturbance you've caused our customers I'm sure you will be willing to order another two rounds of Dom Pérignon, hm?"

Sakamoto nods enthusiastically and waves her away, somehow having procured Katsura's wallet earlier on. When they've finally settled down, Katsura's Joui funds in liquid form arrive by the dozen.

Gintoki lounges back and takes one, downing it in a second. "Don't rile that woman up, she's really a gorilla, I'm going to have to face that gorilla woman later." He's already starting to blab, this being unsurprising to anyone who knows Gintoki's meagre-at-best alcohol tolerance. A faint flush stains the normally pale pallor of his face. "Gin-san can't die already. This is only the second chapter, oi."

Contemplating the fizzling yellow drink resting in the palm of his hand that is evidently not his favourite beverage, Takasugi's eyes are oddly tight as a smile without warmth plays on his lips. "Does it matter?" he asks with a voice deceptively calm like the swirl of the glass in his hand. "I'll be killing you anyway."

The glass shatters in his grip, and the gentle atmosphere vanishes to leave a sudden chill in its wake.

"Takasugi…"

"Ahaha, I hope you have not been having fun without me and Elizabeth! Hey, Sakamoto, that is a nice wallet. Vintage, if you consider our timeline. I have the very same one." Katsura, pet duck-penguin-thing in tow, barges into their table and forces Takasugi to scoot over. Maintaining a serious aura around you isn't very easy to do when you suddenly find yourself squished out of any decent personal space.

Idiots couldn't read atmospheres. Hn. They also infected the atmosphere with a liveliness that lifted the deadening pressure on Gintoki's chest. Wait, no; that was just Elizabeth. Their booth was rapidly becoming too cramped for them. He doesn't think Otae would appreciate it if they asked for a bigger one.

So he settles for grumbling instead, chancing a glance at Takasugi's expression hidden beneath long bangs. Gintoki'd always been a coward; always too damn afraid, always choosing to run away from his problems when it came down to it. "Jeez, you're so high maintenance, just like Oogushi-kun." Gintoki grumbles, still decidedly sulking over the blow to his sensitive stomach. After all, Gin-san's stomach is a vital part that should be handled with care. "The Mayora would have mayonnaise decreed as the drinking water everywhere."

Still, he's surprised when Takasugi, the bastard, goes along with it.

"Every place should have Yakult," he acknowledges, absentmindedly kicking the broken shards of his glass under the table. Which Otae was definitely going to find later. Bastard was _really_ trying to kill him. "Move your hair out of my face before I slice it off, Zura."

And like that, they're back to a precarious truce. Their relationship had always been this way; genuine moments of friendship tinged with genuine moments of animosity, sometimes lashing out – they were both stubborn assholes not lacking in pride and eager to contradict each other in every way - but always bouncing back together in the end. Gintoki had thought that he'd lost him for sure this time, their parting in Benizakura not exactly desirable, and when he'd fought the amanto with Zura's familiar form at his back, the convictions had been to_ never change_. And as the adrenaline of the moment masked the ache of his muscles from the long day, he'd felt disappointment instead.

(_But with this, my sword ... anywhere it can reach, is part of my country!_)

Takasugi had finally gone somewhere his sword couldn't reach. There had been no need to feel anything but indifference at the revelation, because Gintoki had been expecting it to happen all along. Katsura had been more hopeful and less prepared, but in the end he knew full well that they'd chosen separate paths since the start.

But even separate paths could wind up joining again, forks in the road converging to one singular, wider trail; and perhaps Takasugi hadn't changed as much as they'd initially thought. In any case, he was still a stubborn, self-righteous asshole addicted to Yakult.

The first loud sigh of the evening ends up coming from an unlikely source. Sometimes, Sakamoto doesn't know how he got stuck with such a depressingly mopey bunch. "Come on, guys," he sighs, and picks up another glass from the table where rows upon rows of champagne glasses still stand upon. They weren't going to be finished drinking any time soon, so they may as well get started already. The sooner they were through with it, the sooner they could upchuck it back up with the cool press of a toilet bowl on their foreheads and report back to their respective mother-figures at home. Eh? How did they all end up with one, anyway? Mother-figures, Sakamoto begins to reason. Then he forgets what he was reasoning about internally, and raises the glass in his hand. "Let's all toast and start the getting drunk portion of this, ahahahaha.."

Four glasses clink and four heads tilt back, letting the fizzling sting in their throats fill the chasms between them.

"And I realized," says Katsura, pouring another glass of champagne for himself, "We don't have a name for our group."

Gintoki blearily raises his index finger to the air and watches amusedly as he ends up with four identical index fingers spinning around. "Gin...-SakaTakaZura…" He hiccups and then is already out cold before the other three can get in a remark.

"Well, that solves things," Katsura says lightly. "Gintoki should be refrained from naming things. You too, Shinsuke. Neither my hair nor I have ever forgiven either of you."

Ah, it was a bright day under Shoyo-sensei's tutelage when certain vocabulary words were brought forth into the lesson of the day. Words like dango, and dragons, and wigs. And their short forms.

To be absolutely fair, it had been Katsura himself who began the association.

_"Hey, Takasugi, lend me your notes on wigs this morning, will you? Katsura won't lend me his anymore." a young Gintoki requests in a whine, having fallen asleep in the back corner of the classroom again._

_"Maybe you should start paying attention in class," are the words Katsura had wanted to say. "It's not Zura, it's Katsura," was what came out instead._

_Two pairs of mischievous eyes snap up and twinkle – not unlike a rather festive ornament, and fittingly so. This was the defining moment that would mark a friendship with nicknames that they could call, even when they're all old farts and their backs are no longer straight._

_"Right, Zura."_

_"It's KATSURA!"_

In the present situation, Katsura is fast at work pondering a name that none of them could ruin. "It has to be sweet and cute, like... like those school girls!" He exclaims, having gone through the motions of a _eureka!_ moment. And then he blushes, "N-not that I like them. Matured women who also happen to be someone else's woman are more my type. School girls are just cute, like... paws."

"Ahahaha, do you have room for another lolicon in your Kihentai, Sasuke?"

There are so many things wrong with that statement, Takasugi doesn't even dignify it with an answer. He sips at his drink mutely, glaring at anyone looking at the group as a stress reliever while he keeps a rough tab on the conversation at their table.

"It's not a lolicon, it's Katsura," says, well, Katsura. "And if school girls are cute at school, they are cute after school, when they go to eat a bowl of ramen with their friends and bring business to the landlady of a Joui patriot."

"Landlady or lady, Zura?" As smoothly as always (which, of course, is extremely _not_ smoothly), Gintoki joins the conversation at the table, having returned from emptying out the contents of his stomach (merely Dom Pérignon of Dom Pérignon) into the toilet a bit more sober.

"I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH IKUMATSU-DONO," Katsura all but screams. The noise in the room dissipates as the quartet become the center of focus again, effectively negating all of Takasugi's hard work.

The latter sighs. His temples are beginning to hurt. He takes up another glass of not-Yakult, but alas he is much better at handling his alcohol and even the temporarily relief it could offer does not come easily.

"Hey, I got an epiphany, ahahaha, what about Houkago Happy Hour? Houkago, for 'After School', and Happy Hour because that's the best time to get drinks on Earth!" See, Sakamoto has these moments of genius sometimes. He's rather bashful about them, ahahahahahaha...

"And that is relevant exactly _how_?" Gintoki wants to ask. But then he decides it's not worth it, and he's on his way to insobriety again anyway. A group by any other name would still be just as dysfunctional, he figures.

"Ooh, I like it!" exclaims Katsura, nodding fervently, "As samurai, it is our duty to promote the country's economy and boost their happy hour sales. Ramen shops can have happy hour sales, too."

"If they have Yakult," is Takasugi's extremely unbiased contribution.

"I'll speak to Ikumatsu-dono about adding drinks to the overly long menu," Katsura promises.

And so, having won Takasugi over, the newly crowned Houkago Happy Hour (and Elizabeth) make to finish the rest of their drinks, an odd silence having settled over them again. It's not quite uncomfortable, for they've been through too much, together, for the connection to stop lingering over their backs. Still, it's been ten years since they've last gathered together, and the enormity of catch-up they have to do with no clear point to start begins to sink in.

"...'Sup?" tries Katsura. There's no telling if the curious lingo of the youth of Edo would've helped any.

Because the table to their right blows up in the next moment. Eh, maybe it was his "'Sup"..? Katsura's eyes widen in disbelief at the power that was at every hipster's disposal. Was such the weapons of today's time, while he'd fallen behind by focusing on old techniques that, while they were tried-and-true, lacked the upgrade, the innovation of the times. He's glad he pulled everyone into this arc; the resistance movement could fight for a future again while minimizing bloodshed, with all of the new intelligence he's gained!

Meanwhile, Gintoki jumps up with a stumble, having caught the slight movement from the person sitting across from him even in his inebriated state. "You didn't."

"Ahaha, Kintoki, I'm sure he didn't. You didn't, right?" Sakamoto echoes nervously.

HE DID, signs Elizabeth. I GIVE UP, signs Elizabeth, and exits the building with so much class that time seems to freeze in place. Or maybe it's the director today.

It resumes as the doors swing shut. "Didn't I say? I will destroy this rotten world... beginning with this rotten establishment."

The room is silent, the shock dissipating in the air with the billowing smoke and smell of barbequed guts from the debris that used to be a table and maybe two guests. Then–"Not going to disagree with you on that part but NO YOU ARE NOT GOING TO OTAE IS GOING TO KILL ME TAKASUGI YOU BASTAAAAAAR–" bursts out to mingle with "IF I GET BLACKLISTED CAN I STILL VISIT ORYO-CHAN, oh, maybe she can come onboard my ship instead, hahahaha..."

"Eh? It wasn't my ''Sup'?"

And the rest of the bombs go off, cutting off any screeches and sealing their fates. Well, time to run. _Ah_, Gintoki realizes, he should've had more alcohol before the asshole blew it all up. At least they still remember how it goes: north, east, south, west, scattering in the four cardinal directions with one rendezvous point and time in the back of their minds.

_See you guys later._

.

.

.

The lights are out in the apartment of the Yorozuya by the time Gintoki slips back in. He's careful to be as silent as possible, but Kagura slides her closet door open the moment he steps into the main room. One does not attempt to out-stealth a Yato.

"Where'd you go, Gin-chan?" Kagura rubs at her eye blearily as watches Gintoki head into the kitchen to drink the last bit of strawberry milk from the carton. "Mother didn't raise you for you to go out past curfew. I'll punish you tomorrow-aru, don't think you can get away." The part where she was worried (because even though Gintoki had left behind a short note, he could be out doing something dangerous again, and what if he never came back with the sunrise?) goes unsaid.

Kagura's still young, though, and her emotions flit across her face in plain view to anyone who cares enough to look. With a soft smile, Gintoki reaches out and musses her hair while the events of the past day play in the back of his mind. "I told you I was out with Zura and not to wait up for me, hm?"

"Yeah," she nods, and then sniffs the air, finally burrowing her nose into Gintoki's shirt. "Ew, Gin-chan, you smell like disgusting old men with sunglasses who spend all their money on drinks. How could you and Zura go drinking and leave your mother and leader hungry at home? Huh? Did you spend my wages? Give me back my wages, you disgusting old man!"

Before she can begin a physical assault on her, he takes out the carton of eggs in the fridge. There are five eggs left; that should tide her stomach over for a few hours. "Relax, relax, it was Zura's treat." He pauses to look at her carefully, azure eyes chasing out the darkness in the room as they stare back at him with trust, and he can't stop the smile from reaching his own eyes.

"Fried rice?"

Kagura positively squeals.

.

.

.

On his way to his own hideout (also known as Ikumatsu's closet), a conspicuous monk passes by an old snack shop and smells fried rice from above. The hint of a knowing smile lifts the edges of his mouth and he hurries on, wanting to make it home before midnight so he can ask his host for a midnight snack, too.

She slaps him. And makes it anyway.

.

.

.

Sakamoto wanders along empty streets. He turns around the corner of the street with his coat billowing behind him, for all intents and purposes looking like a man with a destination in mind who knows exactly how to get there.

"Of course I know how to get there, I just need to find where I parked my ship," he explains under his breath as he quickly rounds another corner.

"Ah, there, the wedding studio–" He sweat-drops. Right, he'd crashed it...

The Kaientai mother ship was somewhere five parsecs away, the last time he'd radioed its location.

...Hahaha.. oops...?

.

.

.

Back on the ship of the Kiheitai in his captain's quarters, Takasugi raises a brush to the moon and dips it; the words flow on paper, catching every flying thought in his eloquently insane mind.

_Dear Diary_...

_What the fuck am I doing?_

.

.

.

"Do we even know how to write a proper song?"

They're back at it again, two weeks after their previous disastrous meeting for what will probably be another disastrous meeting in the works.

But they're ready to get to work, damn it. "It's been a month and a half since the last chapter, and the readers have probably forgotten all about this by now, so Takasugi-kun will give you the recap," Gintoki says to the handheld camcorder in his hand before passing it along.

"Who let you delegate," says Takasugi, who smirks into the camera anyway. "I beat Tatsuma at UNO today."

He flips the camera to Sakamoto in heavy protest: "The first time you've ever beaten me, and only after teaming up with Zura and having me surrounded with the extra deck of Draw Fours you hide in your sleeve, ahahahaha-"

The camera begins recording the ceiling as sounds of a scuffle can be heard in the background. Katsura peers in briefly to make a V-sign. It's a while before the camera is lifted up to focus again to Takasugi and his vaguely smug face. Katsura cuts in to make more faces at the camera before he's pushed away.

"You guys, are we derailing this again? Mutsu has me on a curfew since last time."

Shared hair problems, shared pain. "Ka-chan shortened mine," Gintoki whines, and the two wavy-haired brothers share a touching moment of empathy and understanding.

Then Sakamoto clears his throat and calls out his opening line again. "Do we even know how to write a proper song?"

Gintoki breezily flicks away a gold nugget from his right ear. "Sure. I helped Otsu-chan write lyrics once and it became a bestseller, you know. It's really easy, you just have to write **** and ***** and add lots of ******* and random **** to it."

"Right," Katsura says, not missing a beat even though he all he gathered from Gintoki's inspiring advice was a bunch of ****s. "What should we sing about?" His mind is already running through the marvellous things they could sing about. _Jackie's nose! The dawn of a new Edo! Tragic, tragic soap opera plots! _ How exciting they would be; how enchanted the youth would be with their revolutionary songs stirring up their ambitions and idealisms for change!

Wait… they had a concept from their photoshoot. They should probably stick to it – but that didn't mean it had to limit their creative and artistic freedoms! "We'll call it _First Love_," he declares. To the general populace in the room unable to grasp his deep thoughts and looking at him with amalgamations of odd looks and exasperated expressions on their faces, he explains, "We must make it relatable to the public. Who has not experienced the joys of first love? We will deliver this joy to them. The remaining otaku who have never experienced this personally, we will become their first loves and let them experience the joy and the reality of being broke after spending all of your money trying to get your first love will notice you, only to realize your senpai has taken her off of the market and he's better than you in every way and they've even taken sticker pictures together!"

He wipes away dramatic tears and gestures even more dramatically at his audience, who are on different levels of being unimpressed. "What kind of first love have you had, haah?" yells Gintoki.

"Ah, but your first love is much more tragic than mine, Gintoki," the moderate terrorist faction leader turns away and takes out something looking suspiciously like eye drops, and turns back when trails of eye drops are running down his face. "Oh, Gintoki, the tale of you and the girl in Yoshiwara was never meant to be! For Shinsuke, the prince of the neighbouring nation, whisked her away on a white horse, charming her with his purple hair that he re-dyes every month…"

He trails off when Gintoki brandishes a pair of shears. "I swear, if you don't shut up now, Zura, I won't be afraid to use these."

"Use them anyway," Takasugi suggests, eye regarding Katsura's hair maliciously as one would with an old enemy.

"_Neither _of you are coming near my hair. Now, let's come up with ideas before the readers get bored. Ah, we'll need to appoint someone to write them down on our whiteboard so we look productive. As the natural leader of this group because I made sure to wear red today, I say… Shinsuke, take notes for today's meeting and send it to me later with that new technology called a p-mail."

"First," Gintoki finds it in him to point out, "it's not a p-mail, it's an e-mail, and those aren't new anymore, they have these things called SMS now that hide in beeping contraptions that keep coming back no matter how you try to smash them into pieces, and they find you even when you're in the middle of taking a dump."

Katsura is flabbergasted at the evolution of what had seemed like a harmless piece of technology. To know that they would go that far – and here he was, leader of an Anti-Foreigner Faction and rallying patriots without knowing that the amanto had already slipped little electronic spies in their midst and added explosive "'Sup"s to their vocabulary. How much did they know.. Katsura had taken a nice long shit this morning before heading out to their rendezvous, could they possibly know he ate some bad anchovies last night? He bites back a shudder, and steels his resolve to push through with their current arc. It was all for the change they would lead Edo through, and once they'd garnered a following, his first move would be banning these whatchamacallit SNS-thingies!

"And secondly," Takasugi says testily, "why am I doing everything."

Katsura waves it aside; it was time to tackle their biggest problem yet. "So, to go with the lovely imagery of first love to allure the population, we need something fresh and cute. Everyone, instruments out~"

Because this is a work of fiction, our aspiring band members easily conjure their respective instruments from thin air. Gintoki pulls his guitar out of his ass. To be fair, he can probably still do this in canon if we're going by his track record. What can't Sakata Gintoki do? What can Katsura Kotarou _not_ do? What is the upper bound of Sakamoto Tatsuma's questionable strokes of genius? How far are we until the end of this part? Here I pose these questions to you in hopes that you will be sufficiently distracted and unable to hear the noise. Hypothetically speaking. Can you imagine it, though?

You might start by imagining a person randomly banging on an instrument of choice. Add another person who's not only banging on _his_ own instrument, but also banging it completely off-beat from the first person. Now add the last person to the mix, and let them all yell out orders to each other.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have Katsura, Gintoki, and Sakamoto.

"Tatsuma, match your drums with my piano!"

"No, match with my guitar playing and then, let's see, we need a guitar solo here."

"Hah! You call that guitar playing? Gintoki, what this song needs is a haunting piano melody. Tatsuma-"

"We're producing songs people can idolize over, Zura. Right, that means we'll need another guitar solo halfway through the song."

"How do you drum, ahahaha..?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that is two more guitar solos than necessary."

"No, I'm pretty sure that's a wig."

"It's not a wig, it's Katsura!"

"Which is still a wig."

"Drum mode activate, ahahahahaha!"

—Wait, what—Luckily, it's a soundproofed room. They manage to cover their ears in time as Sakamoto commences a drum solo louder than any other, landing critical hit after critical hit on the abused drum set. It's only after Takasugi chucks a music stand at him that he stops, having to catch it midair before it broke his sunglasses. He places the drumsticks down to grin at the other three. "Phew, drums are harder than they look. How was that? I can probably do it for the duration of the song."

"The next one to touch their instruments will..." drawls Takasugi, his tongue reaching up to lick at the corner of his mouth at his pause, "_die_."

"Hah, it's easy for you to say! You're the one with the microphone!" Gintoki protests. "All you have to do is sing, while we have to come up with the whole arrangement from scratch."

Takasugi graces him with a thin smile. "Alright," he says, surprisingly amicably, "did you want to sing instead?"

"No!" Katsura and Sakamoto cry out simultaneously.

"I hate you all," the silver-haired guitarist grumbles, and the group prepares for Operation Banging-On-Instruments-Like-Drunkards, take two.

.

.

"I knew this was going to happen," says Takasugi, and he looks frustrated enough to temporarily sober the tone-deaf trio, "so I took one of Bansai's half-finished songs and erased his memory of ever writing it. The chords are all there, we just need to write the lyrics."

"Erased his memory?" Gintoki sputters. "How in Edo did you manage that?!"

"It's easy, would you like a little demonstration?" With his thumb, Takasugi slides an inch of blade out from its sheath, movements heavy with implication.

A gasp from their keyboarder catches their attention. "You didn't trust us," he points to Takasugi in a theatrical bout of hurt.

"If I did, we'd debut in the next century."

He has a valid point. It goes unacknowledged. With a lightly teasing tone and just the slightest death wish, Gintoki remarks, "Oh? Is Takasugi-kun excited about this project after all?"

"I'm excited about finishing this so I don't have to see your stupid hair again."

"Oi, I used a hair insult half an hour ago. Variety, Takasugi-kun, variety," sighs the man with the irresistible silver perm. "Fine, I'll throw you a lifeboat and save you from the raging rapids of disappointed readers. Let's get on with penning the lyrics so we don't waste the deaf guy with the headphones' last contribution to the world."

"Then again," Gintoki trails off in thought as the four of them make to gather in the center again, "it won't be much of a contribution once we're through with it."

"Blasphemy! The Joui will always remember Bansai-dono, who sacrificed himself so the show could go on to the next plot point."

Katsura produces a wad of paper and freshly sharpened pencils for all to pass around. Once everyone is settled with a pencil each and the remainders are passed back to him, he stashes them away only to withdraw another object from within his sleeve. Only a shadow can be seen as triumphant music plays in the background.

_What's that object?_

It will be revealed after this little obligatory section break.

.

.

.

"We'll divide and conquer," proposes Katsura. "Shinsuke can write the first part, then Gintoki will take over the second part, and I'll go next, then Tatsuma, then he'll throw down a Reverse card and it'll be my turn again and then back to Gintoki who will Reverse it back to me, and I'll Skip Tatsuma so Shinsuke can wrap it up."

"Why are you narrating this like a game of UNO?" an incredulous Gintoki cries out. "And why are we - you - _argh_ - you know what, screw my role, I haven't had nearly enough sugar today for this." He drops his head into his arms, and what comes out afterwards is rather muffled by his sleeve, but he's known these guys for long enough to know that they'll get what he's saying anyway. "Let's just do it. The best lyrics are the ones written without any inhibitions, so we'll just beep out everything afterwards."

And so Takasugi takes a sheet of paper and fills it with three lines before passing it along to the person on his right, who snarls at it and writes the next two lines furiously.

"Don't break through the paper, I'm writing next," Katsura reprimands him, clearly eager for his turn.

"Yeah, yeah. Here."

"Hey, are we actually using that?" Sakamoto pipes in, gesturing to the mysterious object still in Katsura's hands—a deck of UNO cards. The last deck they'd been playing with earlier in the day had ended up in a... less than desirable shape. And currently tossed all over the room. Not this one, the other one; if he had to tip exuberantly to warrant a room change, then so be it. Briefly, Sakamoto wonders how many decks of UNO are hidden in Katsura's sleeves. The current deck is promptly tossed over for him to do the honours of dealing their hands while Katsura pens down the next lines of their song with an almost pensive look on his face.

Sakamoto begins the game by sending a Draw Two to their old agreement of a clockwise starting direction, which pointed to Takasugi. Who, unfazed, puts down a Draw Four.

"Here, Sakamoto, the next two lines."

"Got it! By the way, who did you say writes after me again?"

"You Reverse it to me," Katsura clarifies, as he continues the trend of adding another Draw card to the pile in the middle.

A fierce battle rages as the four of them play two UNO games simultaneously. Juggling the muse-taxing components of the first game and maintaining the infallible hands of a cheater in the second is no easy feat.

"Gintoki, back to you. I will change the colour to... red! Hey, has no one incorporated the title of our song yet?"

"Fine, I'll do it...right, 'first love'... hah, take the double Draw Fours, bastard! Let's see who will run out in our secret stashes first! Who do I pass this to now—oh, Zura."

"My cards will never fail me! Here, Shinsuke, catch!"

Peeling his eyes away from the actual UNO game taking place, the latter takes the crumpled piece of paper that had fallen into his lap. It'd been folded into an airplane somewhere along the line, he notes absentmindedly while he scans through the previous lines to think of a way to wrap things up. Never before has he felt such a strong inclination to bash his head against the table. Or wall. Or both, if he was fortunate enough. Really, Takasugi'd never held high expectations of any sort for the lyrics, but it wasn't asking too much for them to actually be _coherent_, right? But of course, no one was going to take it seriously. After all, they weren't the ones singing it. It was all going to come out of _his_ mouth.

But—if they were just going to write whatever they felt like, then so would he.

"And... done."

"Take care of the censoring too, and write it on that board so we can all see it," Katsura instructs him, almost bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement.

Scowling, he gives the final lyrics another run through and crosses out words every so often, expression betraying nothing as he does so. The anticipation is akin to agony for a certain youthful noble. The resident curly-haired brothers are continuing the UNO game by themselves (and secretly slipping cards into Katsura's abandoned pile at every turn).

Finally, the whiteboard is soon filled up with Takasugi's scrawl:

_to the tune of: Pray (Tommy Heavenly6) TV size._

_._

(La la la... ah ah ah ...  
La la la... ah ah ah)

Let's go out to buy groceries  
Let's go a sweet Yakult story  
Eleven-Seven has Yakult and horrendous pink milk

Your BEEP is domestic violence, appreciate strawberry milk  
Because you don't get it that's why that's why you're so BEEP

BEEP you-BEEP BEEP BEEP-you BEEP BEEP-BEEP (Shinsengumi)  
For Edo, for Jackie, we're hiring (Jouishishi)  
Hey guys I thought this was supposed to be cute like my Oryo  
Nothing is cuter than my Oryo-chan, hahaha ahaha

Soba at Ikumatsu-dono's is divine-  
Retribution. Parfait is my first love, there I used the title  
Natural permed hair is sexy - Katsurap yo, let's go  
Destroy the Bakufu  
Edo in flames yo Tendoshu you'll greet sensei for me now

(La la la... ah ah ah)

.

Gintoki is the first to voice his complaints. "The fifth line! Why is the last word beeped out? I only called you *****, why are you censoring *****, you really have a *****-complex, don't you?"

"I'm not singing it." Takasugi levels his perfected creepy-eyeball-expanding gaze at Gintoki. "Do you have a problem with that?" He asks gravelly.

Beside him, Sakamoto's eyebrows scrunch up in thought. "But if it's like this, won't it be too ambiguous? Is Sasuke-kun **********-challenged, just really *****, or does he have ***********?"

"_Sasuke-kun_ is in the wrong fanfiction, and why the fuck would he have hemorrhoids?" Ah, apparently his own speech does not get censored.

"Aw, I know someone who has ***********. I can recommend you the cream he likes," offers Gintoki, always the thoughtful friend.

The idiot duo shares a high-five in the background as Takasugi silently seethes, contemplating the swiftness of a strike that could kill them all. Yes, bloodshed sounded good. The image of silver hair irreversibly matted in blood, floating down crimson rivers alongside broken sunglasses brings a shiver to his spine, and for a second the beast pools out into pulsing bloodstreams and resurfaces.

It leaves a coldness in his veins when it vanishes as quickly as it came, but there is little time to dwell as Katsura picks up the pace for his next part. He'd have to stop spacing out or they were in danger of doing a retake, and he doesn't think his already thin patience can stretch much more. Dimly, he sees Katsura swallow before prodding the subject, like a man unsure of whether or not to touch the fluffy stray cat on the streets because the grooves from the last two hundred and sixty five stray cats still mar his skin. In other words, in a very _un_-Katsura-like manner, because Katsura would not hesitate on such fluffy matters, the long-haired man asks, "Isn't the end a bit too… intense?"

And perhaps it is. Takasugi is wholly past caring. He's been past caring for a pretty long time, now. It's probably listed in his character profile somewhere.

"Even so, I have no doubt that the Bakufu will never figure it out," Katsura allows, when no one seems particular inclined to discuss further.

Gintoki snorts. "Trust me, the Shinsengumi will never see anything wrong with this. Once Tosshi sees us, he'll have everyone in the Shinsengumi buy three copies of our album each. What was it again? One for preservation, one for—" A drumstick flying through the air misses him by only half an inch.

"My hands are bored, hahahahah, can we start playing the song already?"

And so, with a bit of grumbling, the four of them once again take to their instruments. Takasugi really does not have to do in this compartment, so he settles for switching the ON-OFF on his microphone for the umpteenth time.

"Maaaaaan, it sure has been a long time since I touched a guitar. This brings back memories of when Shoyo-sensei taught us the chords," Gintoki sighs, for once heavily nostalgic as he fingers the chords of his electric guitar.

Takasugi looks up to raise a single brow at him. "What are you going on about? We didn't have guitars at all," he grits out. Beside him, Katsura hums in agreement. Or, he's just humming to a tune as he tests the notes on his keyboard, but we'll just assume it's the former for the heightened effect.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Taking on the air of an exasperated teacher, he proceeds to the whiteboard for an impromptu lesson. "We obviously can't just gain musicality in a fortnight. It's not realistic. So when a character suddenly needs to be able to do something but there's no time for a training arc, we have to bring up a back story of how a young and determined Gintoki practiced guitar into the sunrise until his fingertips bled—this has the bonus effect of being a good role model for little kids while establishing that he can play the guitar in a realistic way. Are we clear? Yes? Now, Takasugi, reflect on your mistakes and go stand in the hall."

"Who's going to listen to that? It's too long," Sakamoto calls from the back of the impromptu classroom. Scene changes are such subtle things.

"As leader, I call this much-delayed practice to begin!"

"Let's begin our quest to be the Samurai King by plundering otaku who have nothing better to do than—hey, make sure I get a copy to send to Tosshi!"

"Yes, let us take back the taxes given to the tax robbers robbing our nation!"

"Let's shut up so the author can end this chapter."

And so, armed with their remarkably well-written song and hours of relentless practice until all of their fingers were strained and fingertips wastefully calloused, and further hours in a recording room that will have seen better days...

Sakata Paako. Lead guitarist.  
Katsura Zurako. Keyboardist and backing vocalist.  
Sakamoto Tatsuko. Drummer.  
Takasugi Shinsuko. Lead vocalist and bass guitarist...

..prepare to move out!

.

.-.-.

/end part two

* * *

People who left a review last instalment- thank you. While I mostly write for my own enjoyment, it is incredibly nice to know (not to mention motivating) that people are enjoying it too. If you didn't leave a review last time, it's not too late to start! :D also, there will actually be a plot. Somewhere down the road. IT IS BREWING. This thing is getting a lot more long-winded than I'd initially expected when I started fleshing out the plot bunny, but ah well…

Also, I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote the lyrics to Pray. It should fit, by the way. You can try singing it. I'm sorry ahahaha /flees before the bricks start flying

.

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**coming up next...**

"DONDAKE?!"

_In which our heroes finally finish their preparations and set off for the nation's stage with their debut single and its gentle and moving lyrics! Will it be enough to pierce the flabby flesh of the otaku population and touch their hearts? Will Takasugi cure his ***********? And what horrors in the pop idol industry will await our heroes there..? Stay tuned to find out!_

-04/07/14


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